That I May Know Him

Introduction: The Two Dimensions of Spiritual Consciousness

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, October 11th, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:15 Please turn with me in your own Bibles to Paul's letter to the church at Philippi, the book of Philippians, chapter 3. And I shall read the verses that I read in your hearing last Lord's Day morning. Philippians, chapter 3, verses 7 through 11. Philippians 3 and verse 7.

0:42 The Apostle Paul, now giving a bit of spiritual autobiography, writes, How be it, what things were gain, or literally gains to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Let us again pause and seek the face of God for the illuminating ministry of the Spirit as we take the word of God into our hands.

2:00 Surely our Father, if this portion of your word had been read to us out of the Chinese Bible, out of a Bible written in some other foreign tongue, we would be very conscious that unless one were to interpret the words to us, they would be utterly devoid of meaning and significance. And yet we acknowledge that though the word has been read in our own tongue, unless your Spirit gives us understanding, we will be as ignorant of its meaning as though it were read to us, in a foreign tongue. O Lord, give us that present aid of the Spirit to the end that we may understand and rightly respond to this word of truth. Hear us for the sake of your Son. Answer us for the good of our own souls. Amen.

3:06 Now as we began our examination of this portion of the word of God last Lord's Day morning, I asserted on the threshold of our study that there are in all men, in all places, at all times, two dimensions of spiritual consciousness which they cannot escape.

3:36 I'm waiting for the attention of one or two who I don't know why they think I'm here, but I'm not here to talk to myself.

3:45 This is the word of the living God and I demand a hearing for my God. There are in all men, in all times and all places, two dimensions of spiritual consciousness which they cannot escape. The first is a haunting awareness of their accountability to and their guilt before Almighty God. All men have this, this haunting awareness that they are accountable to God and they are guilty before God.

4:26 And the second is a noise, a growing sense of capacity and need for communion with God. And, although the perversity of man's sinful heart, at the influence of the devil, works to bring men to deny, to obscure and certainly to pervert the expression of these two elements of spiritual consciousness, they are nonetheless there in every man. Every man, woman, boy or girl is born with a tattoo upon his chest, a tattoo that is in the form of a ticket to the day of judgment. And whenever a person is honest with himself, he acknowledges that fact. He knows he is tattooed for judgment and accountability to God. And furthermore, there is carved into every man's soul a God-sized hole that only God can fill. And when men

5:34 are honest about their true awareness and consciousness, they must acknowledge that twofold spiritual sensibility, the haunting awareness of accountability and guilt before God, and that knowing sense of capacity and need. For communion with God. That's true of everyone in this building this morning. Every single one of us without exception. And so whenever men begin to take seriously what they are as creatures accountable to God and made for communion with God, two burning questions will come to their lips. The one is the question, how can I be right with this God before whom I am accountable and in whose presence I am guilty? And the second question is, how can I have fellowship and communion with that God? And no little part of the glory of the gospel is that it addresses itself explicitly to those two focal points of consciousness and answers as no other scheme, as no other religion,

Christ: The Answer to Both Questions

6:48 as no other philosophy can answer with soul-satisfying completeness. The second question is, how can I have fellowship and communion with that God before whom I am guilty? This is a great and burning set of questions. How can I be right with God? How can I know God? And in this bit of spiritual autobiography that has been read in your hearing, the apostle records for us how those questions were answered in his own experience. And he points in verse 9 to the fact that with respect to that first question, how can I be right with God? And right with God. He came to the discovery that he could be right with God only in terms of a righteousness that comes from God, is found in connection with Christ, and is received by faith alone. A righteousness that has no reference whatsoever to his own performance in terms of divine commandment. I simply remind you of the language. He tells us that he counted everything lost in order to gain Christ and be found in Christ, in order to have a righteousness not of his own in connection with the law, but a righteousness through the faith of Christ,

8:11 the righteousness which is from God and by faith. And I say to everyone sitting here this morning, you begin. To be honest with what you are as a sinner, and what you will be as a guilt-laden sinner in the day of judgment, and nothing will bring true peace to your conscience but the experience of verse 9 of Philippians 3. To come into such a relationship of apprehending Christ and being incorporated into Christ, that you are possessed of a righteousness that is not your own, that is from God himself, found in the doing and the dying of Christ, and received by faith alone. But you see, the apostle then goes on to tell us how that second great and burning question was answered in his life, and the key to verse 10 is the fourfold use of the pronoun him. As surely as the key to an understanding of verse 9 was the word him, the key to an understanding of righteousness, I say the key to verse 10 is the fourfold use of the pronoun him. That I may know

9:30 him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead. And here the apostle Paul is speaking to us. He is speaking to us. He is speaking to us. He is speaking to us. He is giving to us, by way of spiritual autobiography, how it was that this gnawing sense of capacity and need for communion with God was resolved in his own experience. And as surely as Christ was the answer to the sense of his guilt, and it was the objective provision of the divine righteousness in Christ that met his need, Paul is saying in the face of the influence of those Judaizers who are trying to draw people away from Christ, that Christ is not

10:27 only the answer to the great question, how can I be right with God? Christ is the great answer to the question, how can I know and have communion with God? Christ was not merely the beginning, but the middle and the end of the entire religious and spiritual experience of the great world. And so in seeking to immunize the Philippians against the influence of the Judaizers, who would not only take them away from Christ with respect to the question of how does one obtain a righteousness that answers the demands of the court of God, the Judaizers would also have Christ plus something else in terms of how to maintain the knowledge of and communion with God. And the apostle is careful to underscore from his own experience that Christ was central to this second sphere of concern as well as to the first. And so the two great provisions of the gospel to which Christ is absolutely central are first of all the objective provision of a perfect righteousness. And now in verse 10, Christ is the provision for the subjective knowledge of the gospel. And so the

The Focus of Knowledge: The Person of Christ

11:49 gospel is the provision for the subjective knowledge and communion with God, which he experienced. Now ultimately, as I finish preaching through the passage, which will not be completed this morning, we shall note first of all the focus of this knowledge and communion, the person of Christ himself, that I may know him. Then the apostle Paul gives us the framework of this knowledge and communion with God. He calls it the redemptive activity of Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings becoming conformed to his death. And then thirdly, he gives us the fruition of this knowledge and communion, the resurrection to life by Christ, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Now, because we're going to concentrate only upon the first few words, the first few words, the first few words, the first few words, the first few words, the first few words, the focus of this knowledge, I want you to have the whole in your minds, even though we are treating only one of its parts, the focus of this knowledge and communion, the person of Christ, the framework of this knowledge and communion, the redemptive activity of Christ, the fruition of this knowledge

13:10 and communion, the resurrection to life by Christ. Now this morning, just the first of those three lines of thought, the focus of this knowledge and communion, the person of Christ, the redemption of this knowledge and communion, the person of Christ. The apostle tells us, carrying on the thought of the earlier verses, that when he reckoned all his gains to be loss for the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ, when he counted everything as refuse that he might gain Christ and be incorporated into Christ, it was not only with a view to having a perfect righteousness in Christ, but it also had respect to this desire to come to an ever-increasing knowledge of his person, that I may know him. Now let's seek to open up what was in the mind and heart of the apostle when he penned those words. Paul was obviously, before and after his conversion, a man possessed of an expansive and highly cultivated intellect. As a young man in right through his manhood, no doubt

14:29 many a time his classmates would have said of him, boy is he a brain. Now when we say that, what do we mean? Well, we usually mean there's someone in our class who's got a good head and is using it, and the two are usually together. You don't say, boy is he a brain of the guy that's pulling C's, D's, and S's. He may have enough IQ.

14:50 But he's too lazy to work. But usually the one we call the brain in the class is the one who's got plenty of intellect and who's using it. Back a few years ago, they used the term, used the terminology, he's got the smarts. And I asked my teenage daughters if that was still used, and they said, no, dad, that's archaic. But because some of us are archaic, I better use that as well. Some of us used to say of a certain individual, he's got the smarts. The term you may now use, you kids, is, boy, is she a brain? Is he a brain? Well, if you had had any opportunity to be a classmate of the Apostle Paul, to have interacted with him when he sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the great instructor at Jerusalem, you would have said many a time, boy, is he a brain?

15:32 He has really got the smarts. And yet, as one who surveyed vast tracts of the whole field of human learning, the Apostle found a field of knowledge which utterly captivated him, and in a sense, made all other knowledge pale into insignificance. When he says, I count all things to be lost for the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ, he is putting in the all things, one aspect even of all the fields of human knowledge that he had explored as a brilliant and a learned man, a man obviously acquainted with pagan literature, with classical literature, with classical literature, with the current intellectualism of his own day. But he says, all of that I regard as a pile of rubbish, because I came upon a field of knowledge that utterly ravished my heart. It is a surpassing field of knowledge. It is the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. And having come upon that field

16:44 and been introduced to it, I have not begun to master it, writing as a man who had discovered that field many, many years before, perhaps close to thirty years before. He says, the present burning passion of my heart is to know him, is to know him, is to know him. Now that brings us to a very vital question. What is the nature of this knowledge which constituted the very essence of the Apostle's communion?

Knowing Christ vs. Knowing About Christ

17:22 Well, let me say by way of trying to describe it and define it, it is distinct from knowing about him. Now, is there a difference between a corpse and a living, thinking, feeling, speaking, moving human being? Well, you say, of course. And what is the difference? A week ago, President Anwar Sadat was a living. He was a living. He was a living. He was a living. He was a living.

17:56 He was a living. He was a living. He was a living. He was a living. He was a living. He was a living.

17:56 Thinking, feeling, acting, breathing human being. For six, five days, he's been a corpse. All the external form of what constituted President Sadat, a man, is there in that tomb in which he was placed. All the external form of the face, the shape of the body, the length of the arms is unchanged. But you see, there is no living.

18:31 There is no living soul within that body. There is but the shell of a man. And you see, in some measure, that's the difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone. Knowing about Christ is seeing, as it were, the form and the shape of who he is and what he's done. Knowing him is entering into living communion with his very person and being. Let me try to illustrate it by a more extended illustration and parable, and I have my wife's permission to do this. Imagine up in Vermont, where my wife was born, that she was born next to a household that had two teenagers, a boy and a girl, two years apart, and they were both very much taken up with photography. Now, the young man was very much taken up with portrait photography. He was fascinated with taking pictures of people as photographs.

19:33 To the face and the look upon the face and the shape and the form of the body. And he had a younger sister, two years younger, also fascinated with photography, but her thing was action photography. She liked nothing better than to come up upon situations and people in unexpected ways and catch people in their natural actions. Well, they asked permission of my wife's father if they could give vent to some of their photographic interest by taking pictures of her during the first year of her life every single month.

20:03 And so the young man took a formal portrait, according to his own aesthetic sense of how he wanted her to sit and smile and all of the rest, every single month for the first year. His sister took some pictures of her in various actions, whether she was stuffing a cracker in her face or was all messed up making mud pies. Whatever it was that caught her sense of aesthetics about good action photography, she began to build up quite an album of photographs of my wife, during that first year, in action. Then they said, now from here on in, once a year, for as long as we can keep contact, we want to take a picture of you. So once a year, he takes a portrait of her all the way through, up until the present time, and I won't tell you how many years that is, and then the sister, she takes pictures of her engaged in some kind of activity all the way from her summers at the Girl Scout camp, when she might have been roasting marshmallows up through the East, the events and circumstances of her wedding. Just forget them. I don't need those, Charles.

21:08 I dropped my glasses for those of you wondering what we're talking about. I won't need them.

21:13 And then right up into her activities as a wife and a mother in her kitchen, rocking her child in a rocking chair, etc. Now, at the end of that time, suppose we could call that man and woman, obviously now mature man and woman, well into and almost out of middle age years, into our presence with all of the photographs accumulated in those two basic areas. All of the photographs of my wife's person and appearance and all of the photographs of her activities. Now, if someone were to have them in an album, or better yet, spread out in sort of a collage, starting from the very infant days, the early months, right up through the present time, anyone carefully studying those photographs would have a vast store of knowledge about my wife. They would have a vast store of knowledge about her person and also about her activities.

22:16 But now my question is this. Would they know her?

22:24 Well, you say yes and no. Well, let me be more fair and ask the question in a little more pointed way. Would they know her as I know her?

22:37 No. You say no. Now it's clear. Why?

22:41 Because I sustain a relationship to her that no other human being upon the face of the earth sustains to her. We have entered into a relationship of mutual self-giving that God says has constituted us one flesh. And within that relationship of mutual self-giving, there is the uninhibited disclosure of heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind, soul-to-soul, I know her. Now you may know more details about her physical appearance by studying that album than I would know.

23:22 There are many periods in her life concerning which I'm totally ignorant as to how she looked, what she looked like, and many activities I don't know anything about. So it would be possible for you in one sense to know more about her as to her external life, her internal form and appearance than I know, and to know more about the specific activities of her life than I know. But though you might have a hundred times more knowledge about her in that way, you do not begin to know her as I know her. Because my knowledge is the knowledge of relationship.

24:00 My knowledge is the knowledge of living communion. My knowledge is the knowledge of reciprocal self-giving and self-disclosure. And that can never be the knowledge gained by photographs.

24:16 Now when Paul said that I may know him, he was not talking about a knowledge that can come by photographs of Christ. Every time Christ is truly preached from the Bible, photographs of Christ are set before you. You get a new picture of some dimension of His person, some aspect of His life, some aspect of His life, some aspect of His life, some aspect of His life, some aspect of His life, some aspect of His work. But my friend, you may have an album full of pictures of the person and work of Christ and not know Him until there is that reciprocal self-giving, self-disclosure that results in union with Christ. You don't know Him. You only know about Him.

Characteristics of True Knowledge of Christ

25:10 Now what are the characteristics of that knowledge of Him that is distinguished? distinct from mere knowledge about Him, well, surely, if we take our Bibles in hand to answer that question, we discover that it's a knowledge that always involves, first of all, illumination.

25:30 Paul could say this same Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God who is the image, I'm sorry, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He said, I came to know Him, not after the flesh, for He said He did know Him in that dimension. Wherefore, henceforth, we know not Christ after the flesh. But He said there was an operation of the Spirit of God in illumination, in His heart, the same God who shined light out of the midst of the original darkness in the original creation. He said it is that God who shined in our hearts. And what is necessary for the first aspects of the saving knowledge of Christ is necessary for the ongoing knowledge of Christ. That's why when Paul prays for the young Christians at Ephesus, how does he pray for them in Ephesians 1?

26:43 He says, this is what I pray, that God would grant you what? The Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know. And without that enlightenment, there is no knowledge. It is a knowledge based upon the illuminating ministry of the Spirit who takes the things of Christ and gives us more than an acquaintance, with His external form as to person and external activity as to work.

27:19 He gives an inward sight to perceive the glory of His person and the suitability of His work to our need. But then it is in the second place a knowledge of appropriation. Look in this very context. Paul does not say in verse 8, the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ, the Lord.

27:46 That would have been true. But he says the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. You see, this knowledge of which he speaks is an appropriating knowledge. What I discover by the illumination of the Spirit with respect to Christ becomes that which I appropriate to myself with the hands of faith.

28:18 He becomes my Lord, my Savior, my Friend, my King. May I say it reverently, my Lover, my Peace, my Joy, my All.

28:34 And then thirdly, this knowledge not only involves illumination, appropriation, but it always involves transformation. Look at 2 Corinthians 2. Chapter 3, and verse 18.

28:50 2 Corinthians 3, and verse 18. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from one glory to another, even as from the Lord the Spirit. You see, the person who might be fascinated with my wife, my wife's face and form could look for a hundred years and not have one aspect of the shape of his or her nose and eyebrow changed. But there is something in the knowledge of Christ that when we gaze upon him by the Holy Spirit, we become like him. Where there is a saving knowledge of Christ, that knowledge is not only marked by illumination, appropriation, but transformation. Look at the language. This is not my word.

29:48 This is God's word. But we all, all true believers, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into that image. You see, you can know something about him, be utterly unlike him, and become increasingly like a devil. But you cannot know him without becoming increasingly like him.

30:17 Amen. And then it is always a knowledge of aspiration. And our text expresses it, does it not? At one point he said, I counted with respect to what happened on the Damascus road.

30:33 I counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. But he said that is the continual reckoning. I continue to reckon all things but loss. I continue to count them as dung.

30:49 That I might be found in him now and in the last day. That I might know him now and throughout all of my days with ever increasing measures of that heart acquaintance which not only ravishes the soul, but transforms me into his likeness. And then he goes on in this very passage to use some of the strongest language of spiritual aspiration. What we might call a holy discontent with where I am.

31:19 And a holy longing to be more and to attain more. And you see, that's one of the marvels of the knowledge of Christ. If we truly taste one gram of that knowledge, we're spoiled forever. What we taste and what we know never causes us to lean back and say, now I've mastered that field of knowledge.

31:46 We recognize that we've been locked in to the one in whom we are. To whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. That there is an infinite beauty in our Savior. That even eternity will not disclose in full to us.

32:02 There is an infinite glory, an infinite perfection in all that he is in his person and all that he's done in his work. That we will be able to go on with an infinite aspiration to know him more and more fully through the unending ages of eternity. And surely the language of every Christian is the language of the hymn writer. One hymn, a very simple hymn, many of us learned it as children.

32:33 More about Jesus would I learn. It's hymn number 676 in our hymn books. Let me just read a couple of stanzas. More about Jesus would I know.

32:46 More of his grace to others show. More of his salvation. Waving fullness see. More of his love who died for me.

32:56 More about Jesus let me learn. More of his holy will discern. Spirit of God my teacher be. Illumination.

33:05 Showing the things of Christ to me. More about Jesus in his word. Holding communion. Ah, you see, it is the knowledge of appropriation.

33:16 Not more so that I have more pictures in my album, but no contact with the person. No, no. I want to know more that I might enter more fully into communion. Holding communion with my Lord.

33:31 Hearing his voice in every line. Making each faithful saying mine. For in the language of the hymn we often sing at our communion seasons. We taste thee, O thou living bread, and long to feast upon thee still.

33:50 And my friend, if you've ever tasted, you long to feast. A hungry man who comes to a table does not merely dip his finger in the sumptuous meal and lick it and go away saying, I'm full. And when hungry souls are brought by the Spirit, not only to have that first question resolved, how can I be right with God? I can only be right with God with the righteousness that comes from God in connection with Christ, received by faith, the same Spirit who introduces Him to the resolution of that question brings Him into a heart, acquaintance, and taste of Christ that forever spoils Him for anything less than being satiated with Christ. That I may know Him. It is a knowledge of aspiration. Now in summary then, let me say, for the Apostle, having found the Lord Jesus Christ by the operative, operations of grace, having found Him, having tasted of Him, there was no separation in his spiritual experience between the resolution of those two questions.

Christ's Sufficiency Against Judaizers

35:04 And when he discovered that the only way to be right with God was to apprehend Christ and to be found in Him, that work of the Spirit which brought him to apprehend Christ and be incorporated into Christ implanted within him this thirst that never left, to go on in the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge that is not merely about Him, the difference of the photograph and the marriage, a knowledge characterized by illumination, a knowledge characterized by appropriation, a knowledge characterized by this aspiration and longing for more of Him. Now do you see how He, struck at the nerve of the Judaizers? They were coming along to Christians and saying, look, what you've heard about Christ is true and fine insofar as it goes. But if you want a righteousness that is super perfect, add to Christ circumcision and the keeping of the Mosaic ritual.

36:18 And furthermore, if you want a Christian experience that is full and rich, Christ is not. He's not enough. He's a good starting point. But if you're really to have that God-sized hole in your soul filled to the full, you've got to cram a little of Moses in there.

36:37 And Paul says, no, Christ is enough for my justification. Christ is enough for every longing of that God-sized hole in my soul. Now then, what does all of this say to us? You can see why I determined to go only this far as I got into my advanced preparation.

Exposing Soul-Destructive Religious Misconceptions

37:01 I'd hoped to preach through the whole passage, but this is so vital. Well, first of all, a text such as this incisively exposes some of the most soul-destructed religious misconceptions imaginable. It incisively exposes some of the most soul-destructive religious misconceptions imaginable. You see, it strikes at the error of these legalists, these Judaizers.

37:31 It's as though a man was placed in prison, although a man were placed in prison. And his captors told his wife, you cannot see his face as long as he's in prison. But you can come to a certain place in close proximity to the gates of the prison where you will be allowed to get close enough to see his shadow as it is thrown upon the ground from the setting sun. And if you come each afternoon when the sun sets, you may be close enough to speak to him and hold some verbal communion, but you cannot see him nor touch him, but you will see his shadow.

38:12 And so every day in the afternoon she comes and the guard places her around the corner of that wall. And she listens for the voice of her husband and she hangs her eyes upon every movement of the shadow and she reasons from the shades of the fingers to his hand and when he turns sideways from his profile stretched out upon the ground as the afternoon shadows will stretch it, even though it's like a caricature and unreal in some ways, she cherishes every bump in his nose and the shape of his chin as she reconstructs what he was like.

38:47 The wonderful day comes when he's freed from prison and she greets him at the door where he's released and embraces him and he, her, and they go back happily to their homes. Can you imagine his puzzlement when at 3.30 she says, Dear, it's time to go and see your shadow. And he looks at her and says, What in the world are you talking about?

39:12 See my shadow? You have me in the flesh! What need is there for that shadow which only dimly represented me? Oh yes, it was an extension of me and in that sense it was a part of me.

39:27 But oh, how dim! You have me! He would think her perverse to the point of insanity if she insisted on going to the shadow. Well, that's what the Judaizers were doing.

39:40 Circumcision! Sacrifices! Washings! Ablutions!

39:45 These were shadows of the great reality who had not come in space and time. They were divine foreshadowings of Christ and true believers held communion with Christ in those shadows, not on the basis of them, but in them and by means of them. Christ was the one true medium of their communion in the Old and in the New Testament. But now that He has come, do you see the folly of the Philippians saying, Let's go to the prison wall and look at shadows?

40:24 Do you see how inane, how utterly spiritual insensible it is for people to say, Now that Christ has come, we've got to have circumcision and man-made rules and rituals? No, no, my friend. And if you're visiting with us this morning and wonder, why is this building so plain and the worship so unornate? There are no crucifixes.

40:47 There are no candles being burnt. There is nothing to appeal to the senses. Why have Him?

40:59 He comes in the singing of our praises to sing with us. And He comes in our praying to minister. And He comes in preaching to feed us with Himself. Trouble me with shadows when I have my beloved.

41:19 It exposes, I say incisively, the error of legalism and ritualism. But now hear me out. It exposes incisively the curse. And I've chosen my word carefully.

41:32 I'm not carried away in the pressure of rhetoric. The curse of decisionism. What do I mean by decisionism? Well, the idea that once a person's been manipulated into praying the publican's prayer, you must forever assure him all is right between him and God because of what he did when he mouthed that prayer.

41:55 And I'm not caricaturing. I received this week full color, a brochure from a large Bible school in the East Coast saying the something-something story. And in it was an article on personal witnessing by one of the most famous people in the world. It was a personal witnessing by one of the most famous people in the world.

42:12 By one of the chief honchos in that organization. It was not the Bible school here in this immediate area.

42:19 And in there was the crassest form of decisionism set forth. Once you have brought the person to pray the prayer, now assure him that his decision has set him in good standing. Encourage him never to doubt the validity of his decision. His decision, his decision.

42:36 There was nothing about the righteousness of Christ. There was nothing about being incorporated into Christ. There was everything to encourage a man if he did something all as well. And one of the tragedies of present evangelicalism is all this professed forgiveness from Christ because of a decision with precious little evidence of this knowledge of Christ rooted in the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.

43:07 This knowledge of illumination. This knowledge that leads to heart appropriation. This knowledge that leads to ever-increasing transformation. And above all, this knowledge that leads to holy aspirations for more.

43:25 And when people think they've got enough of Christ in their decision to hell-proof them and to ticket them for heaven, there is no more appetite for Christ.

43:37 I say, brethren, that's a curse. It's a curse. Christ is not an insurance policy.

43:46 You see, when you make out your insurance policy or your agent does and you pay the premium, there is no vital bond, no mutual self-giving between you and the agent. All you want the agent for is your policy. And having secured your policy, that's the end of it.

44:05 But you see, many view salvation that way. Having made your decision, you've had all the transactions with Christ you need. Now you've got your insurance policy in your pocket. You need no more dealings with the agent.

44:17 You look at this text. Paul says, I count all things but loss that I may gain not an insurance policy from Christ, but Christ Himself. And be found in Christ Himself.

44:29 Yes, having a perfect righteousness, having the only valid insurance policy, yes, but the policy's in His pocket. And I have the policy only if I have Him. And if I've ever truly had Him, I want more of Him. And if I don't want more of Him, I don't have Him.

44:47 And if I don't have Him, I don't have the insurance policy. I say, a text like this exposes not only the error of legalism and ritualism, but the curse of decisionism. But it also exposes the barrenness of what I'm calling sheer objectivism. Now what's that mean?

45:03 Well, it means this. People whose whole understanding of the provisions of grace is objective. They love verse 9. If we had those who were cursed with the barrenness of objectivism, they would have loved the preaching last week.

45:22 Oh, that's it, Brother Martin. Give it to them. A righteousness totally objective to us doesn't rest upon anything we've done in connection with divine law. It is from God in connection with Christ through faith.

45:38 Hallelujah. You're right on target. Preach it. That's great.

45:42 But they would have felt very uncomfortable this morning when you talk about a knowledge of the person of Christ. Mutual self-disclosure. The illumination of the spirit when you talk about the appropriating grace of true faith. Transformation of character and holy aspirations to know Him better.

46:04 Mysticism. Subjectivism. Their religion has no place for that, my friends. That's not the religion of the Bible.

46:12 Man not only is an accountable creature with guilt, he's a creature made to know God with a God-like hole carved in his soul. And in the grace, grace of God in the gospel, God goes after both of these. Both of them. And if you sit here this morning as someone who thinks that the essence of your religion is to be found in nothing but its objective provisions, you have missed one half of the message of the gospel.

46:43 And may I say, fully aware of the service it has done in certain areas, this is one of the great weaknesses of the present truth magazine and movement. Brinsmead and Company out of Austin, Australia. In reacting against the works righteousness and the subjectivism of the charismatic movement, they have set forth a view of the Christian life and of the Christian faith that is top-heavy on the objective.

47:15 And then it seems to me that the text very incisively lays bare the delusions of mysticism. You see, sheer objectivism has a religion that's all verse 9 and no 10. Mysticism has all verse 10 and no 9. The mystic is the one that says, I want to know God.

47:31 I want to have communion with God. I want to know what it is to have, as it were, the very soul of God interpenetrate my own soul. I want to know every dimension of felt, realized, loving communion with God. And when you tap the mystic on the shoulder and say, Sir, have you considered the question, how can a holy God welcome you into such intimate heart communion?

47:58 How can you have such communion with Him? On what basis can you hope to have such communion? Well, you see, he's indifferent to thinking about the legal categories of his relationship to God. He says, I've got a God-sized hole in my soul.

48:13 That's all that matters. No, that isn't all that matters. You're a creature guilty in the court of heaven. And until God can look upon your person with favor, He will not admit your person into communion with Him.

48:29 And that's why justification, as it were, forms the substructure of our intimate communion and walk with God in sanctification. And why God never justifies a sinner without at the same time opening to him his heart and his communion. But He does not welcome men into His communion who are not justified. So you see how balanced the Bible is?

48:57 Verse 9, 10 slays mysticism. Verse 10 slays subjected...

49:05 I'm sorry, verse... Yeah, then verse 10 slays this objectivism.

Comfort for the True People of God

49:10 And in the heart of the Apostle Paul, both realities were present. But then I want to hurry to a conclusion by saying not only does the text incisively expose dangerous errors, but it constitutes a powerful comfort to the true people of God. A powerful, powerful source of comfort to the true people of God. Let me ask you a question this morning.

49:36 Are you fully satisfied with your acceptance before God in Christ? Are you? Have you come to the place where, by God's grace, you're done with plus signs? Are you fully satisfied with your acceptance before God in Christ?

49:59 I believe there are many of you who can say, thank God I am. Well, then let me ask the next question. Are you utterly dissatisfied with your present level of your knowledge of Christ? Oh, you say yes.

50:14 Totally dissatisfied. Well, thank God. That's a sign of spiritual health. You see, it's a sick soul that reverses it.

50:27 That says, well, I'm satisfied with what I know of Christ. But then he's always doubting whether he's accepted in the Beloved. No, no. We must be utterly satisfied with what we are in the court of heaven in Christ with an objective righteousness, but never satisfied with what we are in the court of our own hearts in our knowledge of Christ.

50:50 And here the apostle as a mature Christian says that I may know him. Well, Paul, don't you know the Lord? Yes, but no. I can imagine some zealous young soul winner coming out of the classroom of a personal evangelist course in some Bible school finding the apostle Paul.

51:06 Do you know the Lord? He would have really sent him on his ear because he would have looked at him and said, yes and no. And the poor fellow would have taken out his notebook and said, now, where did my teacher say how to answer that? Don't have an answer for that.

51:21 Yes and no. Yes, he knew the Lord. On the road to Damascus he came to an introduction to that knowledge, that new field of knowledge in the face of which he counted all other knowledge but refuse. But oh, what he tasted made him hunger and thirst for more.

51:43 Some of you have heard the quote George Whitefield, that mighty man of God whose devotion to Christ shames me so much. I can't take much of his biography at once. I get so discouraged I want to quit. I mean that seriously.

51:56 I can only read a little at a time. I read a page of Whitefield's biography and I wonder if I've ever known or served Christ. And yet it was Whitefield who said on his 50th birthday this day I have vowed to begin to begin to be a Christian.

52:17 Think of it. A man who for over 30 years had preached on both sides of the Atlantic braving the storms and the treachery of that crossing. He said this day I have vowed to begin to begin to be a Christian. Now what was he talking about?

52:38 Not his acceptance in the Beloved but his dissatisfaction with his present degree of the knowledge of Christ. And oh Christian if you feel that tension be comforted. That's the mark of spiritual health. And then finally the text constitutes a sounding board for the gospel to you who are yet in your sins.

A Sounding Board for the Gospel to Sinners

53:03 What does God say to every man, woman, boy or girl in this place who is not in Christ? God says look man look woman look young lady look young man I made you you're accountable to me your conscience reminds you of that in every sober moment. You cannot you cannot by any work of your own find acceptance before me. And furthermore God says I made you for myself to hold communion with me I have carved a God-shaped hole in your soul and no amount of sin can fill it.

53:39 No amount of pursuit of wealth of sensual pleasure of sex and drug-induced highs and pleasures of this life. It's a God-shaped hole and I carved it and only I can fill it. And you know what God says to you in the gospel? That Jesus Christ comes offering both pardon and acceptance and the filling of that hole.

54:06 And the thing that struck me as I prepared for this morning was how some overtures of mercy come with a heavier emphasis upon one and some on the other. For instance to the prophet Ezekiel God says turn ye, turn ye why will you die? What is underscored is man's accountability. Flee from the wrath to come is the language of John the Baptist.

54:30 But then there's sometimes when God says hold everyone that thirsts. Come unto me all that labor and are heavy laden. And in some cases people make their approach to Christ because the thing that is uppermost in their minds is the ache of that God-shaped hole. But when they come to Christ they not only get the hole filled but they get their record sorted out in heaven.

54:56 Other people come with a greater consciousness of the wrath of God the judgment of God the impending doom of hell and the world of outer darkness. But when they come fleeing from the wrath to come God begins to fill that hole. That God-shaped hole because they've come to Christ and he never imparts one without the other. Oh my sinner friend you need Christ.

55:19 Christ and all his gifts. Christ and all his grace. Give yourself to Christ. Give yourself to Christ.

55:29 He and he alone in the perfection of his person and work is the only answer to that sense of guilt to the ache of that God-shaped hole in your soul. Then you too will be able to say with Paul I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I've gladly suffered the loss of all things and count them but refuse that I may gain Christ and be found in him having what? Not my own righteousness but God's righteousness and that I may know his person. Let us pray.

Prayer

56:20 Our Father we stand amazed before the brilliance of the light of your grace when we who wickedly sinned against you and justly incurred your wrath we who cast you off as our end as worthy of communion and fellowship and have sought to fill our souls with trinkets and toys we acknowledge oh God our conviction that you could have left us in that state we thank you for the grace that ever contrived a way whereby our problems before the court of heaven could be fully rectified and the deep needs of our souls fully met we thank you for the great apostle in whom we see as it were the very record of your gracious dealings we pray that his testimony will be ours flesh the word preached this morning to the people the edification strengthening of your people and oh God may the great and final day reveal that this word did not fall upon deaf ears in the case of those who are strangers to grace draw sinners to yourself that Christ may become all in all to them

57:46 we ask these mercies in his name amen